A man who falsely accused another man in a probation office of being a child molester before attacking him at a bus stop, has been jailed for 27 months.

Prosecutor Ryan Rothwell told Caernarfon Crown Court that Thomas Faulds, 22, of Sefton Road, Old Colwyn, was appearing for sentence for the offences as well as breaching an 18-month sentence suspended for 18 months on September 14 last year for having a knife in a public place, affray and possessing cannabis and cocaine.

Mr Rothwell said for that sentence, Faulds had also threatened to stab another man with a knife at a party and was ordered by another judge to carry out unpaid work and rehabilitation.

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Mr Rothwell said Faulds had attacked the complainant, who was totally innocent, at a bus stop in front of other people by punching him in the head and leaving him with a black eye before running off.

When he was arrested, Faulds had denied the attack.

Mr Rothwell said that a few weeks later in June, the victim was walking across Vale Road Bridge, Rhyl when the Faulds said to him: “I had better not see you in court or else I will get the lads after you” in order to stop him giving evidence against him.

Anna Price, defending, said Faulds had been an inpatient at Hergest psychiatric unit, Bangor in August this year after being sectioned suffering from a mental illness.

Sentencing him to a total of two years and three months, of which he will serve half on licence, Judge Huw Rees said: “You are a young man of 22 with a persistent desire to resort to violence all too easily.”

He described the attack on the man at the bus stop as an unpleasant incident witnesses by members of the public adding that witness intimidation was a “serious offence.”

The judge asked the defence to write to the Hergest psychiatric unit at Bangor to express the court’s displeasure at the lack of co-operation in providing notes about the defendant’s brief spell as a patient there.